Editor's note: CNN contributor Hilary Rosen is the political director and Washington editor-at-large of HuffingtonPost.com, which describes itself as an Internet newspaper and focuses on politics from a liberal point of view. A longtime Democratic adviser, Rosen is a former CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America and supported Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

Hilary Rosen says Sarah Palin showed she is a tough and aggressive politician.

Well, that predebate analysis quickly became moot. She threw some punches. He didn't punch back at all, but not because she seemed too soft. He didn't punch back because her punches didn't score any points, so why bother?

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Gov. Palin is a tough, aggressive politician who showed the country Thursday night that she was not going to hereafter be defined as the weak and vulnerable person we saw in interview clips all week. She wanted the discussion on her terms and the analysis to be about the McCain-Palin ticket.

Joe Biden is free to criticize Gov. Palin just like any other opponent. And pundits from now on are free again to simply give our views without worrying about her fragility.

So here goes. Palin's answers in this debate vacillated between disappointing and incoherent. On the most pressing issue facing Americans this week -- the economy -- she had surprisingly little to offer. She repeated the McCain tax cut plan and health care plan.

But since their tax cuts mostly go to the wealthy and their health insurance proposals offer little more than a potentially useless tax credit, that just wasn't enough. And when moderator Gwen Ifill asked about consumers who face debt or difficulties with their mortgages, she actually asked to change the subject and went back to another answer on energy exploration, which had been fully covered minutes before.

On Iraq, she was just incoherent. She said something about the surge and Obama and fighting. But it didn't answer the question, which was: What is the right plan for Iraq?

Oh, the "pit bull" is back. And she and John McCain are still wrong for the country.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.